The craft-beer boom thunders on, with neighborhoods big and small welcoming new breweries with open wallets. Dozens across the Houston area, from Galveston to Bryan-College Station, are drawing respectable crowds with regular taproom hours and a soul-stirring variety of beers.

But back in 1994, it was a lot harder to convince Houstonians to try something as exotic as an amber ale. The task fell largely to Saint Arnold Brewing Co. and its founder, Brock Wagner.

"He did all the hard work way, way back," says Ben Fullelove, whose Brash Brewing Co. is among the brash new breed of Houston beer makers. "Everyone who opens today has a much easier time and a market to pitch it to."

His point is clear. Wagner and his early team struggled to educate consumers about the different, more intense flavors craft beer had to offer. His Saturday brewery tours - with free samples and a signup sheet to get newsletters - became a model for others seeking to build awareness and brand loyalty in an era when American beer was almost completely defined by light American lagers served up by Bud, Coors and Miller.

For more than a decade, Saint Arnold was Houston's only production craft brewery, making far smaller batches than its mainstream competitors. Wagner enjoyed craft beer's first wave and endured the crippling bust that followed. During a time when Texas law still prohibited breweries from selling beer on site, Saint Arnold expanded beyond its industrial-park roots to convert a century-old warehouse with downtown views into a bona fide tourist attraction.

So as Saint Arnold recently celebrated its 23rd anniversary, Fullelove and four of his contemporaries paid homage to the "granddaddy" of Houston craft breweries with a series of "tribute" beers. Each took a known Saint Arnold beer and brewed it with their own twist. A weeklong rollout drew packed crowds at popular beer bars around town.

Brash, whose staff includes a former longtime Saint Arnold brewer, Vince Mandeville, put its take on Weedwacker using a new type of yeast and adding white wheat to the recipe. The result is Knutsens Farm.

B52 Brewing Co., a 3-year-old craft in Conroe, turned Saint Arnold's original Amber Ale on its head by using brettanomyces yeast for a tart, sour flavor and adding blackberries and raspberries. The result was Bishop's Gone Wild, a name play on Saint Arnold's Bishop's Barrel series.

Other tribute beers included Extravagant Yard Cutter, Southern Star Brewing's extra-hoppy take on Fancy Lawnmower; Brock The Night Away, an imperial black India Pale Ale inspired by Santo and produced by Magnolia's Lone Pint Brewery; and Chop Shop IPA from Eureka Heights Brew Co., the youngest of the bunch.

Eureka Heights brewmaster Casey Motes is another Saint Arnold alum (along with Mandeville and Southern Star founder Dave Fougeron). While employed there a few years ago, he developed the beer that became Saint Arnold Art Car IPA.

So Motes enthusiastically took on the task of making Chop Shop, channeling Art Car but with a different type of hops, citra, that is used in some other Eureka Heights beers. Like Art Car, whose cans are adorned with a drawing by local graffiti artist Gonzo247, the Chop Shop artwork is an interpretation by the muralist Ack!

Motes credits Saint Arnold for its ability to make "really good, really consistent" beers that fit well with Houston climate - and for "weathering the storm" during the 1990s.

For his part, Wagner seems most gratified by the community that has grown up around craft beer, as exemplified by the crowds who attended the recent round of tribute events. He feels good about his role in nurturing that.

"At the end of the day," he says, "it's about sharing beers with friends."

Deputy Business Editor Ronnie Crocker is a veteran Houston Chronicle writer and editor. He's also author of the 2012 book "Houston Beer: A Heady History of Brewing in the Bayou City," which drew on his Houston Chronicle reporting about the Bayou City's burgeoning local industry.

Born in Galveston, raised in Houston and Pearland, Crocker became the first person in his family to earn a college degree - a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Texas A&M University. He also has an MBA from The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., but has spent his entire working life as a daily newspaper journalist.